State inspectors halt Detroit demolitions, say city didn't do an asbestos check

AP file photoAn abandoned Detroit home meets its demise.If Thursday is any indication of how Detroit Mayor Dave Bing's massive demolition project is going to go, then it may not reach its target date.

Bing's plan to knock down 3,000 vacant and abandoned homes by the end of the year could be stalled by state intervention. As The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press report, state inspectors halted the first demolition on Lewerenz Street due to asbestos concerns.

The Detroit News, April 2: The city hadn't filed certification through the state Department of Natural Resources and Environment showing inspectors had checked for asbestos and removed it, spokesman Robert McCann said. So, demolition was stopped after one house was razed and will resume after the certification is complete.

Detroit Free Press, April 2: Residents along Lewerenz in southwest Detroit said Thomas Vincent, an asbestos inspector with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, shut down a crew that had torn down one house on the list and was preparing to haul the debris away."He said these houses were not finally inspected and needed the final OK to be demolished," resident Dave Yrhus said.

Should the city have to file certification for each home scheduled for razing, it could slow the process to a crawl.

Meanwhile, posters at DetroitYes scoping out the list of addresses of places to be demolished as well as an interactive Google map on Freep.com have been speculating about Bing's methodology of knocking down the homes.DetroitPlanner: These are the worst of the worst. 500 out of 10,000 is only 5 percent. The clearing of land into large parcels will need to be a long iterative process. This cut addresses the ones that are way too far gone. Conversely, the map does not show a relationship to current neighborhood density. Therefore one house on a block might be all that is needed to clear the whole block.

Crumbled_pavement: I'm going to get much hate for this but they can tear down just about all of Brightmoor. That place is a complete dump now. A cardboard box is an improvement on 90% of the housing stock there. The other 10% is only marginally better than a cardboard box. esp1986: Notice, many of the first few are in the area of City Airport (On Gratiot just a couple miles from Downtown, and yes, I refuse to accept the current name which is synonymous with corruption). Bing has said a few times, that better utilizing this airport could be a key to reinvigorating the business community, as Metro Airport is way the hell from the city. One of the airport's biggest downfalls is that it is landlocked, but much of the land surrounding it is vacant.